Making Music More Expressive: Crafting the Musical Birthday Cake

Building Your Musical Vocabulary When Learning a New Piece

“What can I do to make this more musical?”

This is a question I am often asked by eager students who want to take their performance to the next level. They know that there is more to be said, but don’t quite have the musical vocabulary with which to say it.

As a teacher, I like to think that I have a relatively large toolbox from which to draw to help my students develop their own approach to learning a piece of music. Every student is different, and I feel a need to articulate ideas in a way that resonates with their unique perspective.

In this article, I will explore one metaphor that I often utilize to illustrate the conceptual organization that is required to begin diving into a new piece of music.

The Musical Birthday Cake Concept

When asked how to make a piece of music more musical, I often respond, “Well, let’s make sure we have the rest of the Musical Birthday Cake constructed properly before we add the icing and candles.” After a few seconds of confusion about what I mean, and an embarrassing attempt on my part at drawing a cake, we start to dig into the building and assembly of the layers of learning a piece of music, i.e., the Musical Birthday Cake.

What are the different layers of a piece of music?

To be honest, one could become quite obsessive and end up with a 30-layer cake!

For a professional or an advanced student this may be appropriate, but for an approach to teaching a high school or young college student, I am going to present things in a more “big picture” sort of manner. I present this cake concept as a way to organize a student’s thinking about the elements of a piece of music, as well as their approach to their practicing of it.

What should the first layer of our cake be?

The First Layer

We should begin with the plate the cake will be sitting on. This plate could represent the fundamentals of good clarinet playing: good sound, proper equipment, a solid embouchure, an understanding of breath support and articulation, proper hand position and a properly developing technique.

Until these elements begin to fall into place, the building of a musical cake cannot be completely successful. Noisy articulation, an unpleasant sound, or a lack of a consistent flow of air will make the forming of a beautiful phrase impossible.

Of course, as we work with students to accomplish these goals we should introduce the concepts of shaping a phrase, but the real work of building beautiful and accomplished performances begins when that base plate is complete and ready to hold our cake.

So, what is the inner structure of our birthday cake made of? One word. Accuracy.

Inner Structure of Birthday Cake

With every genre of music we may be trying to whip up into a tasty confection, whether orchestral, solo, chamber works, contemporary or avant-garde, our first goal is to accurately perform what is on the page. As my favorite conductor always says, “If it is on the page I want to hear it.”

For this conversation I am going to divide our cake into three layers.

Bottom Layer

The bottom layer will represent correct notes and rhythms. The definition of correct here will include smoothness and cleanness of technique, as well as good intonation.

Middle Layer

The middle layer will be the other information that a composer puts on the page that guides our performance. This includes articulation markings, dynamics, accents, and other musical markings.

Top Layer

The third layer of our cake will be the words and instructions that a composer gives to us. Words that indicate tempi, mood, style, and phrasing. These are often overlooked by young players, and yet are key to our understanding of a composer’s intentions.

As we rise up through our cake’s layers we are getting closer to answering our hypothetical student’s question, which I think could be more accurately stated as, “how can I make this piece more of a personal expression?”

Let's Talk Icing...

Once the body of the cake is baked, we’ll need some icing to hold these layers together.

I always insert a bit of theory in my lessons, and I think the icing holding the layers of the cake together can be thought of as at least a basic knowledge of the formal structure of the piece.

This includes:

• An awareness of tonal centers, or in an atonal or serial piece
• An understanding of what that means
• Knowledge about the composer
• Historical framework
• Some basic performance practice tips also add to the overall understanding of a piece.

The inclusion of these elements into a student’s cognizance absolutely infuses a performance with authenticity and provides the “glue” to hold it together.

As a student grows in theoretical and historical knowledge, the more binding this icing will become.

In addition, if the piece has an accompaniment, or is a sonata, chamber piece or orchestral excerpt, knowing and studying the other parts that are part of the performance is essential. Our cake’s icing is very important, indeed.

Once Your "Cake" is Assembled

Now our cake is assembled. We have put together a structure that is based on accuracy and knowledge.

The individual expression that we all look for in our work as artists really begins here, the top icing, or the frosting.

It is here that we start working and shaping our phrases and fine-tuning the expressive elements of our piece, identifying the beginnings, peaks, and the endings the phrases, as well as how we start and end our phrases. It is what makes all our hard work start to sing!

Of course, some of this will have already been addressed during the work done earlier, but as the technical elements fall more into place this part of our process becomes more sophisticated.

Let's Decorate!

Embedded in the frosting (the phrasing) are the sprinkles, the candles, and the flowery rosette decorations.

These are the special elements, the personal and artistic sparkles that make this Musical Birthday Cake uniquely ours, our way of playing a piece that will differentiate it from everyone else’s.

The use of tone colors, a subtle emphasis here, a slight push forward there, all the expressive tools in our toolbox are available. This is what our students mean when they ask, “how do I make this more musical?”

The answer to that question is more complicated than they, perhaps, originally thought.

The complete musical picture can only come when the rest of the work, what I often call the grunt work, is done, or is at least well on its way.

It goes without saying that all of this needs to be done in a way that is appropriate for each student’s level of musical development. It can all easily be geared to each student’s individual needs and abilities. It can be quite simple, or cranked up to a very high level.

Next Up in the Series

This is the first article in a series of articles that I will be writing that will explore each element of our cake. This is a broad brush stroke of an approach to learning a piece, but I have found it to be one that my students can relate to as it helps them to understand the need to work a piece out in a systematic way.

This allows a performer to both honor and respect what the composer has put on paper, as well as develop and create their own individual expressiveness. It also brings home the concept that our first commitment as performers is to the composer, and that it is only after we do what has been asked of us that we are free to add our own spice and sparkle.

The Focus of Future Articles

There are so many amazing articles written by my teachers, mentors and colleagues addressing the elements that make up the plate upon which our cake sits.

They have shared amazing insights into the teaching of tone production, articulation, proper approaches to technique building, etc. I will be adding some of my own thoughts during the discussion of this plate, but because of the abundance of great material already available, I am, for the time being, going to focus primarily on the edible elements of our metaphor.

Of course, learning a new piece is never this segmented. It is inherently a more holistic process, and we always touch upon each element to some extent during every step of our progress.

*Also, the art of how to practice will be addressed as we explore this. Practice technique is an entire topic unto itself, but will need to be a part of this discussion since practicing in a non-productive way will result in a frustrated student and delay their progress.

My goal is simply to suggest one approach of bringing awareness to each part of the “baking” process. I hope it might prove to be a useful tool.

About Stacey McColley

Stacey McColley is the adjunct professor of clarinet at Florida Southern College and other colleges throughout Central Florida. She is also an artist/faculty member at the Inter Harmony International Summer Music Festival in Italy. Stacey is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist and is an author for Vandoren educational publications. Stacey is currently the Principal Clarinet with the Florida Philharmonic, Principal Clarinet with Opera Naples,the Gulfshore Opera, the Opera for Earth Orchestra, is a member of the clarinet section of the Southwest Florida Symphony, plays bass clarinet with the Sarasota Opera orchestra, and is the Solo Clarinet and Artistic Director of the Reflections Chamber Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary chamber music. Stacey served as Principal Clarinet for many years with the Opera Tampa Orchestra under Maestro Anton Coppola. In recent years Stacey has performed chamber music concerts throughout the United States, including appearances in Carnegie Hall, New York City; San Francisco; Minneapolis; Arcidosso, Italy; Acqui Terme, Italy; Madrid, Spain; Texas, and throughout Florida. She has also appeared as a guest soloist with orchestras and wind ensembles throughout Florida. Stacey received her Master’s Degree in Clarinet Performance from the University of California, her BA from the University of South Florida, with additional studies at the University of Southern California. Her main teachers were Mitchell Lurie, Michele Zukovsky, Kalmen Bloch and William Powell. Stacey’s students have been accepted into prestigious schools throughout the country. Her oldest son plays trombone in Pershing’s Own, the U.S. Army Band based in Washington DC. Her younger son is the harp instructor at the Blake School for the Arts and the University of Tampa.